January 9, 2012

Obama's Disastrous Make-Believe Defense Strategy

[...] "When Maxwell Taylor became Army Chief of Staff the following year, he decided to address dwindling resources, shrinking forces, aging equipment and too many missions with a bold new doctrine and a plan to reorganize the Army.

He created the "Pentomic Army." Taylor's Army would be more mobile and agile, able to disperse and fight on nuclear battlefields. The term "Pentomic" drew its inspiration from the five battle groups he would organize and the short-range atomic weapons with which they would be armed. Taylor thought his Army needed a name that sounded modern and "sexy."

The Pentomic Army was an abject failure. Most of the technologies needed to implement the concept were little more than ideas on paper. In one year, fielding tactical nuclear weapons for the force consumed half of the Army's shrinking research and development budget.

It left less than 5 percent of that budget for modernizing the Army's vehicle fleet. Pentomic tactics also proved irrelevant to virtually every mission that arose -- from providing emergency assistance to civil authorities at home to conducting conventional overseas operations and counter-insurgency warfare.

After years of wasted effort, the Army abandoned the Pentomic force -- and blundered into Vietnam.

The Pentomic experience ought to serve as a cautionary tale for today's military and political leaders. While the Pentagon polishes it strategic review, the Navy and Air Force dance with the AirSea Battle concept."

"The president's continuing lack of leadership in response to Iran's saber rattling brings to mind the October 1961 Berlin Crisis. There, just a few months after the communists began constructing the Berlin Wall to stop the hemorrhaging of refugees from East Germany, a confrontation developed at the Cold War's iconic Checkpoint Charlie, located between the U.S. and Soviet sectors in Berlin," ...

John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies at the LA Times:

"No good can come from the perception of the United States in retreat, a willing accomplice in the dismantling of a regional order -- Pax Americana -- that has been the linchpin of Mideast security for decades. It's a dangerously corrosive narrative, one that left unchecked will breed uncertainty, instability and even war. Disabusing friend and foe alike of its accuracy should be a top priority for Obama,"

[...] \"When Maxwell Taylor became Army Chief of Staff the following year, he decided to address dwindling resources, shrinking forces, aging equipment and too many missions with a bold new doctrine and a plan to reorganize the Army.\n\nHe created the \"Pentomic Army.\" Taylor's Army would be more mobile and agile, able to disperse and fight on nuclear battlefields. The term \"Pentomic\" drew its inspiration from the five battle groups he would organize and the short-range atomic weapons with which they would be armed. Taylor thought his Army needed a name that sounded modern and \"sexy.\"\n\nThe Pentomic Army was an abject failure. Most of the technologies needed to implement the concept were little more than ideas on paper. In one year, fielding tactical nuclear weapons for the force consumed half of the Army's shrinking research and development budget.\n\nIt left less than 5 percent of that budget for modernizing the Army's vehicle fleet. Pentomic tactics also proved irrelevant to virtually every mission that arose -- from providing emergency assistance to civil authorities at home to conducting conventional overseas operations and counter-insurgency warfare.\n\nAfter years of wasted effort, the Army abandoned the Pentomic force -- and blundered into Vietnam.\n\nThe Pentomic experience ought to serve as a cautionary tale for today's military and political leaders. While the Pentagon polishes it strategic review, the Navy and Air Force dance with the AirSea Battle concept.\"

\"The president's continuing lack of leadership in response to Iran's saber rattling brings to mind the October 1961 Berlin Crisis. There, just a few months after the communists began constructing the Berlin Wall to stop the hemorrhaging of refugees from East Germany, a confrontation developed at the Cold War's iconic Checkpoint Charlie, located between the U.S. and Soviet sectors in Berlin,\" ...

John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies at the LA Times:

\"No good can come from the perception of the United States in retreat, a willing accomplice in the dismantling of a regional order -- Pax Americana -- that has been the linchpin of Mideast security for decades. It's a dangerously corrosive narrative, one that left unchecked will breed uncertainty, instability and even war. Disabusing friend and foe alike of its accuracy should be a top priority for Obama,\"